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the incidents allegedly took place. It could be, for example, that both the American and the Russian space programs did bring back discoveries that were not anticipated.
    The American space program was an extraordinary success, but it should not be assumed that everything went smoothly all of the time. There were many technical difficulties to be dealt with in flight, but with the means aboard, the crews could solve them all in short time. Some breakdowns required consultation with and advice from the controllers and technicians in Mission Control at the Flight Center in Houston.
    Difficulties started as early as the first flights of the Gemini program, the second phase in the American push to reach the Moon. (The first was the single-man Mercury program.) Gemini 3 blasted off 23 March, 1965, with astronauts Virgil Grissom and John Young aboard. It made three orbits around the Earth and was supposed to re-enter the atmosphere at a very precise angle in order to achieve the greatest possible slowdown before landing. But the spacecraft's guidance computer did not work properly and it landed nearly sixty miles short of the target area where a US Navy carrier was waiting to pick it up.
    Gemini 4 was launched on 3 June, 1965, with James A. McDivitt and Edward White aboard, and achieved an elliptical orbit between 100 and 170 miles above Earth. With McDivitt photographing him, White went for a 'spacewalk', but when he returned to the craft, the door of the capsule would not close. It took some time to fix that. In all, Gemini 4 made sixty-two Earth orbits, returning 7 June. As on the previous flight, its landing computer malfunctioned and the splashdown was again sixty miles short of the pick-up carrier.
    When, on 21 August, 1965, Gemini 5 put L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., and Charles Conrad into orbit between 100 and 160 miles up, the heater for the oxygen malfunctioned and then the stabilizing rockets became erratic and other trouble cropped up. Mission Control gave the order to descend, which the craft did on 29 August, after a record eight-day flight.
    Gemini 6, with Walter Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard, wouldn't lift off the launching pad and the rocket motors had to be stopped - always a very dangerous process. Gemini 7 was supposed to make a rendezvous with Gemini 6 in space, but Mission Control decided to launch Gemini 7 first.
    Gemini 7 was launched on 4 December, 1965, with Frank Borman and James Lovell aboard, and was placed in a circular parking orbit of less than 200 miles altitude, where it waited until 9 December, when Gemini 6 finally was able to lift off. Gemini 7's flight set a new endurance record of fourteen days and the planned rendezvous of the two spaceships took place without further complications.
    Gemini 8 was launched on 16 March, 1966, with Neil Armstrong and David R. Scott aboard, and after only five revolutions around the globe succeeded in catching up and docking with an unmanned 3-ton Agena rocket that was already in orbit. But exactly 28 minutes after the successful docking there was real trouble. For no apparent reason, the two linked spacecraft began to spin. The astronauts in Gemini 8 decided to free themselves from the Agena, but the Gemini capsule continued to rotate faster and faster.
    The astronauts themselves found the source of the trouble. One of the stabilizing rockets had failed to turn off and was causing the spin. All fifteen remaining stabilizers had to be reignited in turn to counteract the momentum caused by the spinning and to bring Gemini back to normal attitude. When this was finally achieved, only a quarter of the rocket fuel remained. Instead of the planned three-day flight in orbit, the mission had lasted only seven hours when Mission Control ordered Gemini 8 to return to Earth immediately.
    Gemini 9, with Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan aboard, also had to carry out docking with another Agena rocket in orbit 180 miles up; but the Agena wouldn't start as planned on 17 May,